The Humbling River
by Gehenna79
Summary: The Autobot-Decepticon conflict has breached into the Milky Way Galaxy, a Galaxy under the threat of invasion by Reapers. What will their arrival mean for Humanity and the other Council races? COMPLETE. Part 1 of 3
1. Chapter 1

The Humbling River- A Mass Effect and Transformers cross over.

I.

"_Freedom is the Right of all Sentient Beings"_ -

Optimus Prime.

Commander Shepard was thinking.

He looked forlornly at the picture on his desk. A picture of a young woman in her twenties, with a bun of golden-brown hair at the back of her head, a smug smile worn on her face sat on the desk. This was the face of Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, now Operations Chief Williams, who that same day, Shepard had run to on a mission to the colony of Horizon. The Collectors had taken most of the colony. The elusive enemy had struck again. But more importantly for Shepard, his former lover, girlfriend, whatever one would call their relationship had ended. Ashley no longer trusted Shepard just because he happened to be working with Cerberus.

That straight, blunt truth was not something Shepard could easily handle.

And with that being said, he took the picture and threw it in the small wastebasket underneath his desk.

Shepard knew he was being too emotional; too emotional by a soldier's judgement anyhow. He knew that he would return to strict professionalism before long. But it was too hard; coming back into the world, being told you have been gone two years, and how not too much has changed but enough had that it made him feel like the outsider. It was a hell of a recovery, a hell of a wake up.

Shepard would probably have sat there for another hour, but he was interrupted by the sterile voice of the ship's Artificial Intelligence, the Enhanced Defense Intelligence, also known by most as EDI.

"Shepard," said EDI, her physical "body", a blue sphere construct appearing on a small square terminal on the wall, "The Illusive Man would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience."

Shepard sighed and said, "Yeah I'll be there in a minute."

He took the elevator down to the CIC, and walked into the Comms room. The now all too familiar feeling of his physical form being turned into a hologram representation occurred and he was now in contact with the Illusive man, the mysterious, ruthless benefactor of humanity.

Shepard didn't trust him completely; not with the background his group had. Shepard still remembered the dessicated, husk-like bodies that he found at the Cerberus Facility on Binthu when he had gone searching for Admiral Kahoku. That kind of thing didn't easily fade from memory. But he and the Illusive Man had one thing in common; they knew how to get the job done; no matter what the cost.

"You called?" asked Shepard dryly.

"Yes, I have something you may want to hear," said the Illusive Man. The Illusive Man was nearing old age. He had a widow's peak with combed back gray hair above it. He had a strange quality to his eyes, they seemed riddled with blue markings similar to glyphs. The Illusive Man pressed a button, creating a map of the Milky Way before Shepard's eyes. "Today was an eventful day, for our intelligence against the Collectors, as we already discussed. I would like to give you a day of rest and preparation, but with news this hot, I don't think we can afford to miss another opportunity."

"Alright," said Shepard, his patience already waning, "Just tell me what it is."

"Right, well, we intercepted a distress signal from the Alliance Colony, Bedouin, out in the Traverse. Its a backwater planet with only one settlement, where they mine Iridium. According to them, they said that a meteor of massive size was crashing into the planet. This was unexpected, strange even to me, but I wasn't going to contact you, I had planned to send a relief operative team, with the primary objective of finding out why such an event would have taken place, but then, something else happened."

"What?" asked Shepard, interested.

"Apparently the Collectors happened to be in the area, and went to go check it out. For what reasons I'm not sure. However, listen to this..."

The Illusive Man pressed another button on his chair's console and a Collector voiced began to speak. The Collectors had no emotion to speak of, so that explained why the Collectors were not more frantic. However, the Collector was cut off in the middle by a strange, robotic, eerie noise. It reminded Shepard of the Geth's stuttering, but louder, like a power tool. And then the clip stopped playing.

"I'm guessing you have no idea what that noise was."

"If I had to guess, that's what a Reaper sounds like. But, as we know there are no Reapers in this galaxy yet, and it also wiped out the Collectors, which we know work for the Reapers."

"Right," agreed Shepard, "So whatever made that noise, that signal, is not a friend to the Reapers."

"Indeed. It doesn't mean they are a friend to us, but...It would be worth checking out don't you think?"

"I agree," affirmed Shepard without hesitation, "I'll ready a team and go down there myself."

"Good, but be cautious Commander, we could be dealing with things more powerful than us."

"Don't worry, I won't squander my usefulness for you," and with that Shepard walked out.


	2. Chapter 2

The Humbling River

II.

Optimus Prime had felt better. His circuits were causing pounding in his hard drive processors, the thinking capabilities that made him as sentient as any organic being. His body had holes, where sparks would sometimes erupt from, and his right arm had been ripped off leaving tendrils of wires cut and frayed. Optimus needed repairs and fast, and with luck, a new paint job. Nobody would be able to tell he was himself without his signature blue and red colors. Optimus let out a groan, a strange habit for a synthetic being, and got up from his seat.

The Ark was still intact. _Good_, thought Optimus, _but bad, the Decepticons are sure to have survived this as well._

Optimus pushed passed some chunks of heavy metal, and walked into an exposed ship corridor. The bodies of dead Autobots, their eyes long stopped glowing with that spark of life, were strewn about like grim pieces of refuse. Optimus shook his head in regret, walking past the bodies of the fallen.

This war had gone on too long.

But his sensors could tell that he was in an atmosphere, that there was gravity, and it wasn't artificial. There was temperature, slightly arid, which was irrelevant to a Transformer.

Optimus made his way to the bridge. The ship had fallen upside down and Optimus realized he was walking on the ceiling of the ark. When he came to the bridge the command consoles were above him, dead and nonfunctional.

Nobody seemed to be alive here either.

"Where could they all have gone?" wondered Optimus aloud. If it was real, that he was the only Autobot alive, it would take a lot of convincing for Optimus not to put the trigger to his head and end it all. The shame of losing all his men, men that trusted him to deliver them safely away from war, was too much to bear. But then he was answered with another mechanical groan.

"Who's there?" asked Optimus.

"A little help?"

Optimus turned around to find the bodies of a couple of dead Decepticons and Autobots being moved a little, and he started to toss away the bodies to give the survivor room to get up.

Emerging from the wreckage, was a small Autobot with a mix of salmon colored and blue colored plates. The Autobot, Perceptor, got up and said, "Optimus, its good to see you in somewhat one piece."

"Perceptor, do you know what happened?"

"Our two ships entered the space bridge portal. I think the Decepticon ship crash landed on this planet as well, but not in the same location," Perceptor dusted his shoulders off, "The trajectory of our ship I was able to calculate the moment we began entry of the atmosphere. However, once we entered a lot of the ship burned up, and many of the surviving crew, of which there were already not that many, were burned to death. I'm sorry, Optimus."

Optimus sighed once again and said, "So much death. Do you have any idea where we might be?"

"No, the Space Bridge Portal was completely random, it was a last ditch attempt at escape. And it worked too. But sadly the Decepticons were not sent somewhere else."

"It is not unfortunate," stated Optimus seriously, "We need to find Megatron and end this here and now. Although last I thought, he was on this ship."

Perceptor let out a nervous laugh and said, "I hope not. He would have probably come in here to finish his work. My guess was that he got flung out into space, and is floating around somewhere in the cosmos."

"Too good a fate for our enemy, but lets not dwell on that," Optimus picked up an arm with an energy blade attachment and pointed to it with his remaining hand, "Do you think you can attach this here?"

"How'd you lose your arm?" wondered Perceptor as he began to work, "Was it during the fight with Megatron?"

"No, I ended up beating Megatron badly. To be honest, its possible that he may be dead but I'll believe that for certain when I see the body, sparkless and cold," said Optimus.

It took about five minutes, but Perceptor was able to hastily patch-work together the arm to Optimus. It didn't look pretty but it would function. "There," said Perceptor, proud of his medical work, "Not as good as Ratchet, but it will do."

"Thank you, friend," said Optimus putting a hand on the smaller bot's shoulder, "Looks like you and me from here on out."

"Hopefully there will be more to come, the ship is quite large. I wonder if any civilized species live out here," wondered Perceptor curiously, "Maybe they would be advanced enough to have space flight and we could strike a deal for passage."

"Its possible, but whatever happens, play nice. We don't want to start any wars. Our size alone is enough to scare anyone. Unless you know, they are bigger than us."

The two of them came up to a corridor, where light streamed in radiantly. As they came in closer, their visuals flared up for a second, adjusting to the bright light. But as they walked out, they came upon a desert, a sea of warm sands, amber brown waves flowing almost magically.

"Well one thing's for sure," said Perceptor, "We're not on Cybertron anymore."


	3. Chapter 3

The Humbling River

III.

When Megatron finally woke, he was floating about, in the cold black that was space. He let out a scream that was soundless, a fit of rage with no voice, then he shut his mouth. The fool Optimus had gotten away again, and now he was in space, free floating around like a piece of junk. A gaping hole, just to the left of his Spark, had been formed by the Autobot's Leader's blade. Besides that though, the Decepticon leader was for the most part unharmed. He had survived much worse, and would continue to do so.

His first thought was to transform into his alternate mode and escape, but then he realized that would not work; his alternate form was a hover tank, incapable of space flight. The lack of foresight on his part made him rage again. He could transform but he could only slowly propel himself through the cosmos. He did so, pushing himself along the winds of space, spinning around at the same time.

It was humiliating, and it lasted for quite some time.

But then, he began to see a blur of color on the relative horizon.

Megatron tried his best to right himself toward it, and was able to make his way closer. It began to grow, and it was then that Megatron realized that it was a planet. Now this would be interesting. With luck, Megatron would be able to land on the planet, but it was also possible that entry of the atmosphere could cause some major damage to him.

He decided to try his luck.

Another hour passed, and he approached the planet with gaining speed.

Heat began to form around him, intolerable friction lighting up the thin atmosphere around him as he entered the planet.

His sensors began to blare and bleep with caution, and he ignored them, steeling himself for the descent.

Megatron built even more heat and ignored the slow chipping away at his metal, the partial melting on his chassis, and the tip of his tank's cannon.

He was descending in a shaft of hot, white light. And nothing could stop him.

It was quite fortunate for Megatron when he hit an ocean, the salty waters cooling him down instantly, and breaking his fall.

* * *

"Found it," said Joker over the comm, "The Collector ship is parked about four clicks north of your position, Commander. Had to use satellite imaging, no heat sigs from the thing. Its dead."

"I see," said Shepard, standing among the ruined colony of Beduin. Charred corpses, human and Collector, were strewn about on the ground, their faces unrecognizable. The town hall was engulfed in a pillar of smoke and fire, and many of the buildings had been shot up, piles of rubble forming on the sandy streets below.

Makos, hover cars, and Hammerheads had been abandoned, others on fire in the hot Bedouin sun. The whole thing looked like a war zone. Whatever had attacked the Collectors, or whatever the Collectors had attacked themselves, had fought back, and had been destructive. There was no clues as to who they were though; they had no casaulties to look at.

"Alright team," regarded Shepard to his teammates, Garrus Vakarian, the blue skinned, mandibled,Tturian sniper, and the Salarian doctor, Mordin Solus, "We're moving North."

"Got it," said Garrus, "Its damn hot out here, Turians are used to humidity, not this dry, scratchy heat."

The three started moving and Mordin replied to Garrus' complaint, "Turian anatomy similar to birds. As you can see, not many birds suited to desert life. Except maybe Vulture on earth.I wonder, has the commander ever seen a vulture?"

"No, Mindoir was a garden world, and I never visited Earth other than Vancouver, nor did we bring Vultures with us."

"Pity, Earth such a variety of climates. Plethora of habitats. Will have to visit some day."

It took about an hour before they started to see signs of battle again. A dead Scion, its sacs punctured violently, blue goo staining the sand, laid among a group of dead Collectors.

The trail of death continued, until finally, the bulbous, organic looking ship appeared over the edge of a ridge. A pillar of smoke had risen from the top of it, twirling through the blue skies like a malignant snake.

"There it is," said Garrus.

"Yeah, lets do this quietly, stealth is key," said Shepard, pulling out his Avenger Assault rifle and using its scope to zoom in on the ridge.

"Roger that."

Garrus took out his sniper rifle and looked through the scope. He could see no movement from his location. Shepard gestured that they move in, and they straddled around the right , moving perpendicular to the ridge.

They stopped at a large sandstone boulder and took cover behind it. The Collector Ship was directly above them on the ridge.

"How do we get up there?" asked Garrus.

"We'll have to boost each other up and climb a little, I'll start with Mordin."

Shepard boosted the Salarian up, who was surprisingly heavier than he appeared. Mordin pulled up Garrus as Shepard boosted him up, and both of them pulled Shepard up.

They continued their way and reached the top of the ridge and dropped low.

What they saw then they couldn't believe their eyes.

Synthetics, from over twelve feet tall to nearly seventeen feet tall, were standing about , scrapping parts of the Collector ship. They had metallic exoskeletons, and purple lights glowed from their eyes and appendages. There were four of them, all looking quite mean looking, casually stepping over the bodies of dead collectors. Obviously, the Collectors had been of no challenge to these new comers.

The largest one had what appeared to be wings, and small, claw like hands. It appeared to be calling the shots, and had a gaunt, angular face. It yelled and bossed the others around who seemed willing to serve, or possibly scared of their master.

"What are these things?" wondered Garrus aloud.

"I don't know," said Shepard, "Mordin, do you think we should try and make contact?"

"Problem in deciding that. Whether or not Collectors provoked response is not known. Definitely posses weapons however and should be dealt with extreme caution."

"I say we recon the situation for a little while," suggested Garrus, "See if we can guess their motives, they seem to be interested in scrapping the Collector Ship for parts."

"Possible," added Mordin, "They posses a ship. Looking for repair parts. May be peaceful. Agree with Garrus. We should wait and see."

"Alright," whispered Shepard, who then spoke into his comm, "Joker, we are going to stay here and do some observation of our new friends. Stay in the system, in case we need you."

"Got it commander."

And so they waited.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Due to my purely selfish reasons, while I am aware that Shockwave technically did not accompany Megatron and stayed on Cybertron during Fall of Cybertron, I love his character so much, my favorite character in the Transformers canon, that I humbly ask the reader to pretend that didn't happen. All other mistakes of characters are non-intentional mistakes and will be corrected if brought to my attention._

The Humbling River

IV

Shockwave was hard at work, cutting through pieces of the alien ship's internal structure. Shockwave was a thinker, and he wondered as to what kind of race would build their ship like an insect hive, with many sac like profusions on the pale brown walls. The pieces of metal that Shockwave cut off and tossed to the ground would be useful in repairing the Decepticon ship, the _Nemesis_, but were not made in the same vein as any kind of Cybertronian technology.

Shockwave was about thirteen feet tall, and his head was like a rectangle. He had but one eye, a long visor that glowed with a bright purple dot. The Decepticon had few weapons, his expertise being more in technology and wisdom, but he did have the ability to shoot laser bolts out of his optical visor, deadly streams of energy that had brought many Autobots to their knees over the course of the war. Because of his specialties, he had never been able to take on Megatron, and assume his rightful place as leader of the Decepticons. But that time, Shockwave thought to himself, would soon be approaching if Starscream continued to be a tyrant.

As Shockwave started up again with his laser-shears, he heard his name shrilly called out on the Comm channel.

The Decepticon responded to the call, put down his work and walked back outside from the ship. His opticals flared for a second, as the sun of the planet was very bright. "Starscream," grumbled Shockwave, "What do you want now?"

"Skywarp got back to us from his scouting mission. He found the Autobot ship."

Shockwave did not sound impressed, "And did he find any Autobots?"

"No, he did not. But, we would do well to go over there and salvage that ship."

Shockwave sighed with annoyance, dealing with Starscream was a pain, the very voice of the Decepticon was bothersome, but Starscream was right. "Alright," agreed Shockwave, lets move out to over there."

"Its about twenty clicks north of this position," explained Starscream, "In a sea of dunes, according to Skywarp."

Starscream yelled out to all of the Decepticons, of what was left being the members known as Soundwave, the master of information gathering and stealth, with his faithful pet Battle Ravage stored within his chassis, Brawl, a brute fighter with skill in demolishing anything, and Barricade, a sort of marksman.

"Decepticons, we are mobilizing to go take the Autobot ship and salvage it! Decepticons," Shockwave groaned as Starscream used the utterly unnecessary catchphrase that had started with Megatron, "Mobilize!"

All at once they transformed, Starscream transforming into a space fighter with a remarkable ordanance, Brawl transforming into a heavy tank, a huge cannon fused to the center of his chassis. Barricade transformerd into a hover vehicle, two laser turrets on the front of his hood, and Shockwave himself transformed into a jet, purple thrusters blazing as the decepticons swiftly rode away from the site of the alien vessel.

* * *

"They're leaving," said Garrus softly, folding up his sniper rifle.

"Fascinating," said Mordin in awe, "Synthetics capable of physical form alteration in the form of vehicular transport. Synthetics in Masquerade!"

"And dangerous, just look at that ordanance," muttered Shepard, "Joker," he said over the comm, "What direction are they going?"

"North, commander, you want me to send the shuttle for pick up?"

"Send it, we won't be able to pursue on foot."

Ten minutes later the Cerberus shuttle zoomed in, and picked them up.

* * *

Optimus Prime and Perceptor had walked along the length of the ship, and had walked in again to look for any survivors. Their search proved fruitless for two hours, (as best time that Perceptor could make out without knowledge of the planet's rotation,) until they reached the armory of the ship, that was guarded by two heavy blast doors.

"Think you can cut through this?" asked Optimus.

"My laser shears can't cut through the door, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways of getting in."

"As?" said Optimus skeptically.

"Through the roof," said Perceptor and with that they went upstairs into some charger stations for Autobots who needed a rest. Perceptor brought out his shears, and carved into the floor, searing a bright orange circle. The roof caved in, pieces of debris shattering and falling like crumbling like dirt. Perceptor hopped down to the metal floor with a thud, followed by Optimus.

Immediately Perceptor was grabbed from behind, and a voice growled, "Hold it right there..."

A laser cannon was aimed at Perceptor's back and Perceptor grinned to Optimus, who said, "Ironhide, easy, its us."

Ironhide, a short, block shaped Autobot, put down the gun and sheathed it back inside his arm and said, "Optimus! You're alive, thank Primus."

Optimus and Ironhide embraced with a hearty hand shake, and then Ironhide apologized to Perceptor, "Sorry, Perceptor, thought you might be a Decepticon. I only awoke but an hour ago, and found I was locked in this room."

"Didn't think to blast out through the ceiling?"

Ironhide laughed, "Even if I did, I'm not tall enough to climb out. We got a good selection of weapons though down here though. In case some Decepticon scum comes looking for a fight."

"So far we haven't run into any Decepticons, nor have we been attacked."

"Really," Ironhide said disappointed, "darn, I was hoping to try some of this stuff out. I didn't even know we had such things as particle rays."

Perceptor picked up a long silver tube-like weapon and attached it to his arm. "Gauss Rifle," he said proudly, "One of my inventions, wouldn't hurt to arm myself with it."

Their banter was interrupted with the low roar of thursters blazing in the air.

"What's that noise?" asked Ironhide.

"Thrusters, four hundred kilometers an hour," explained Perceptor, "My guess is the Decepticons are finally mobilized unless..."

"Unless what?" said Optimus.

"Unless there are lifeforms on this planet, advanced enough to build air transport as fast as that. Either way, I suggest we arm ourselves."

Optimus attached a new Laser blade to his arm, and a plasma cannon to his right. Ironhide looked on approvingly and said, "Lets get up there, I guess."

Each one boosted each other up through the hole in the ceiling and before them a hole as large as two transformers gave them view of the sky and dunes outside. Three blurs of movement zipped by, gracefully.

"I think you're going to get that fight after all," said Optimus grimly to Ironhide.

* * *

Shockwave's sensors located Optimus Prime before any of the others did. A bright red box outlined the Autobot leader on his HUD, as they flew by.

"Autobots detected," said Shockwave without interest, "Shall we engage?"

"Decepticons Attack!" yelled Starscream.

"I must protest against this," argued Shockwave, "We are currently not at full strength, and Optimus Prime is a better fighter than all our brutes."

"Hey Slaghead," yelled Brawl, "Shut your mouth! We can take on the Prime."

"Seeing as there is no Megatron here to enforce my cooperation, I will sit this one out," said Shockwave.

"You coward!" yelled Starscream. Shockwave turned himself around. Skywarp asked, "Should we blow him out of the sky boss?"

"No, we still need Shockwave's technological expertise, we can't get rid of him just yet. But he will pay for this later."

And so they began their attack firing bolts of energy at the Autobot ship, explosions in vibrant orange flames as they rounds hit.

* * *

The pilot of the Cerberus shuttle called up the Commander to come up to the front. Shepard walked into the tiny cockpit. The pilot was a short african american wearing a simple cerberus t-shirt, shorts and a baseball cap. He said, "Sir, I think you should see this. I'm picking up heat sigs, all over the place in this location," the pilot pointed to an area they were quickly approaching.

"Take us around, recon pattern," ordered Shepard.

The pilot swerved the plane around to the side, and changed course to make a sharp curve. The display feed on the side cameras showed Shepard what was going on. Explosions were present around the hulk of a ruined ship, smoke coming up from the wreck in long pillars.

"There's a battle going on," said Shepard softly, "Pilot," he ordered firmly, "Drop us one click away."

Just as they did so, a sleek black jet zoomed overhead, looing menacing, a purple glow coming from its front.

"What the hell was that?" the pilot yelled. Shepard didn't answer him, he couldn't.

Shepard came back into the passengers room and said, "Suit up, team, we're going back on the ground."

"What's happening Shepard?" asked Garrus.

"I honestly don't know, but there's a fight going on, and I want to see this close up. They're not fighting Collectors this time."

"Who are they fighting?"

"Each other."


	5. Chapter 5

The Humbling River

V.

Perceptor let out a shot from his Gauss rifle. The shot was a blur of green-gray energy and extremely accurate, unfortunate for Brawl. Brawl had been left without cover, and Perceptor had not missed his mark. The shot ruptured Brawl's face into a million pieces and the Decepticon fell to the ground, slumping over dead.

The autobot saw Starscream and Skywarp make another pass over head, trying to fire at Optimus. Optimus was busy laying down fire on Barricade, who himself was trying to snipe Perceptor and Ironhide. The two autobots were firing up at Skywarp and Starscream but not succeeding.

Ironhide cursed the flying decepticons, "Stand up and fight you bastards!"

Skywarp must have heard this because he quickly came up and switched to his Cybertronian form, doing a barrel roll on the sand and firing a heavy particle shot at Ironhide's chest.

Ironhide felt a severe burn there, looking down to see his middle starting to slag, and he brought down to one knee.

"Damn you Decepticon scum! You'll pay for that!" he said, seething with rage.

Optimus fired shots down at Skywarp, hitting the Decepticon on the back, but not damaging him enough to keep him from transforming and flying off again. An explosion buffeted Optimus and knocked his face to the ground.

"Perceptor!" yelled Optimus, "Take out Starscream or Skywarp now!"

Perceptor tried to get a lock, but couldn't, as they were moving too fast in their vehicle form. Ironhide tried again to keep firing up at them, but to no avail.

"Fall back to those rocks," said Optimus, "They'll blow the ship to pieces if we go inside, and we can't' hold them off here."

"Tactical retreat sir?" asked Perceptor.

"Just get on it!"

And so the three Autobots ran shooting wildly behind their heads.

* * *

"What the hell is going on?" said Garrus with disbelief.

"Purple Synthetics attacking red Synthetics. Must be a power struggle," suggested Mordin.

Shepard couldn't say anything, but then he saw the Black Jet, a thin fighter with long dorsal fins and rear fins return and circle by them.

Then, within a blink of an eye, it transformed and landed right next to them.

"HOLY SHIT!" yelled Garrus, spamming the trigger on his Viper.

The creature did not respond, but the rounds did little damage to it. It held its hands, palms facing them upward, a sign of desired peace. It was huge, much taller than them, and its head was like a box, with a small purple dot glowing within it.

"Stop," said Shepard forcing Garrus's gun down, "It doesn't want to hurt us."

"You can read robot now Shepard?" mocked Garrus.

"No but it didn't attack us, you think if it meant to do that it could have just bombed us from the air if it knew where we were? And look, its hands are up. It wants to talk."

Garrus put his gun down and said nothing.

The creature looked at them with interest, then put out its arm and a blue light came from its forearm. A field of light centered around Shepard, moving up and down. "Commander!" yelled Garrus, "Are you being harmed?"

"No Garrus," said Shepard, "I feel nothing."

The creature kept its blue light focused on Shepard for a minute, then they heard a sort of beep from it, and then it stopped. The creature began to press some buttons upon itself and then, it began to speak to them, in a voice that was airy and lighthearted, a surprise to the team.

"Can you understand me?" it asked.

Shepard tried to show that he was not afraid, even though secretly he was, "Yes. Who and what are you? And how did you learn our langauge?"

"My name is Shockwave, I am a Sentient Robotic Organism from the planet Cybertron, but more simply I am a member of the Decepticon League, or even more simply, I am a Transformer. I learned your language from the device you have installed within your armor. I sensed its processing abilities and installed its translating function within myself, quite cleanly, I might add."

Shepard listened and then he had a sudden realization, "Oh, he means my omni-tool. You mean this?" Shepard lit his omni-tool up and the creature said, "Fascinating, and you can manipulate with that? Fascinating, truly fascinating. But yes, I used that to learn your language with a time span of twelve seconds."

Mordin looked beside himself in wonder, "Amazing."

Shepard asked Shockwave, "What's going on down there? Can you tell us?"

Shockwave said grimly, "My brothers, the Autobots, the purple ones, are attacking our enemies, the Decepticons, who are sworn to destroy and my peace loving brothers. On our home planet they started a war against us without provocation, and after we fled from the homeland that they destroyed they followed us here. My brothers saw them and the Decepticons decided to attack. As you can see," Shockwave gestured over to the battle, "My brothers have them on the run, at the cost of one of our men."

"Why aren't you fighting?"

"I am ill-suited to Combat," explained Shockwave, "I only have a laser in my opticals, but besides that I do not have any weapons. I am a gatherer of intelligence."

"A spy perhaps?" said Mordin.

"You could say something like that."

"So," said Garrus in a demanding tone, "What do you want from us?"

"I merely wanted to make contact. We are stranded on this planet. You do not owe us a way off, but I thought I would make our prescence known to you before the Decepticons did. They would have attacked you on sight, and then you might have attacked us as well, not knowing our political division. Your weapon did not harm me, but that doesn't mean you don't have any weapons that could harm me, or my brothers."

"Makes sense," said Mordin, "We would not be able to tell the Synthetics factionally apart from each other. If, we can believe Shockwave's narrative. The Decepticons will have a different view, to be sure."

"Of course," said Shockwave, "They would tell you that we are innocent victims. I do not wish that you get involved in our war, I just want to keep you from being killed by our enemies."

Shepard thought on this for a minute and said, "So you said you are stranded here?"

"Yes, we need a way to repair our ship."

"Maybe," said Shepard aside to Mordin, "The Illusive Man has resources, or a ship big enough to get them off planet."

"Possible. Still, should be careful before we trust them."

"Of course," repeated Shockwave, "But we would be in debt to you if you did such a thing."

"Alright," said Shepard, "Lets let this battle finish then we'll decide what to do."

* * *

Optimus, Ironhide and Perceptor were pinned behind a large, dome shaped rock. Lasers and missiles zoomed over them. Any movement out of cover would lead to them getting painfully sent back. "Well," said Ironhide grimly, "What do we do now?"

"Wait them out?" suggested Perceptor, "They have to run out of ammo eventually."

"Not with lasers, besides, they could be sending someone up right now to take us out from above."

"Maybe we should just surrender then. I don't see Megatron, maybe they'll let us live."

Ironhide snarled with fury and hit Perceptor across the face, Optimus then yelled at him in rebuke. Ironhide said, "We don't even consider that. They have ripped our friends apart for fun!"

Optimus said, "No, Perceptor, we can't surrender. If we do, we're not getting out of this anyway."

"Then I guess we're stuck then. Slag."

* * *

Shockwave and Shepard's team continued to watch the stand-off. Finally Shockwave said, "I am going to be leaving you my friends. I am going to see if I can force a surrender out of the Decepticons."

"Sparing the enemy. Ethical, last resort being annihilation. Will be interesting to see what happens," Mordin said.

"Alright," said Shepard, "We'll stay here."

Shockwave transformed quickly and landed two feet behind Starscream. He grabbed the Decepticon, and turned him around to face Shockwave. "Starscream," he growled, "Offer Surrender."

"Are you mad?" said Starscream in rage, "And how dare you order me around like some mongrel?"

"I have made contact with aliens. Aliens who using my brain, which I actually still have, managed to get some sympathy from. I told them we were the Autobots and that Prime and his cudgel are us. If we offer surrender, it will further increase our...sympathy," he explained clearly to Starscream.

Starscream took a moment to consider what Shockwave had said, then he grinned, "I must say you have outdone yourself. We'll take the Autobots into Custody, then take them off world. Then we'll take the aliens ship for ourselves. What fun."

"Not immediately. We still don't know what kind of technology they have. We should find their vehicles, scan them and make them our secondary forms, before we do any such thing. In case we need to blend in."

"Of course," Starscream laughed. "Skywarp!"

"Yes sir!"

"We're offering our enemies surrender, stand down."

Skywarp looked dumbstruck. Starscream grew annoyed and said, "What are you waiting for! Get to it!"

* * *

The shooting stopped.

"What's going on?" said Ironhide.

A loud, shrill voice that could be only known as Starscream sounded out loud from behind the rock. "Decepticons! We are giving you the chance to surrender. Take it now or we will be forced to destroy you!"

The three autobots were confused. "Decepticons?" said Perceptor, "He's not talking to us is he?"

"We will give you three minutes to answer," yelled Starscream, "Then we will commence our assault."

"I don't know what he's talking about," said Perceptor.

"Quiet," growled Ironhide, "Prime, what are they up to?"

"I have no idea, Ironhide," Prime grumbled and put his head out to the side of the rock. He saw the Decepticons, now very close to their position gaining a foothold.

"Well, they don't mean each other," said Prime, sitting back, "Starscream must have finally lost it. Still, I think they are serious about this surrender."

"What we do Prime?" said Ironhide, "You're not really considering this?"

"If Megatron was here, I would go down fighting without hesitation but," Optimus postulated, "This is Starscream. He is a coward. And he knows he's bound to lose Skywarp if he comes over this rock. He can't lose men not right now. So, maybe this is genuine."

"Are you willing to risk it?" Ironhide accused.

Optimus grimaced and stood up, removing himself from cover. He called out, his voice booming over to Starscreams' audio receptors. "Lets talk first, shall we? What's your game, Starscream?

"No game, Prime, only **survival**."


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note: Short Chapter I know, but I am now in the planning stage for what I shall do next with main plot, involving the Decepticons and Autobots. My plan for the series will to settle the skirmish and get the Autobots on Shepard's side, then probably skip forward in time to a week before Mass Effect 3 as I already have a plan for the main events, as this is more set-up. That story will be known either as "Till All Are One" or "Sons of War." Feel free to PM any suggestions or things you would like to see :)_

* * *

The Humbling River

VI

Rael'Zorah was fixated on the Geth arm before him. Using a magnifying lens, he was able to view the many complicated circuits and wires that lay beneath the chrome-plated exterior. Using a small set of twezers, and a small welder, he was repairing some of the frayed wires and inserting new ones. The Geth arm was one of several parts sent from his daughter, Tali Zorah, and would be instrumental in bringing back the golden age of the Quarians into fruition.

His goal was simple: he wanted to take back the homeworld.

The homeworld of Rannoch was the only planet they could see themselves reacclamating before the Reaper invasion that was to come. Not every Quarian believed in the tale of the Reapers, but Tali did, and no matter what, Rael would believe her testimony. And because of his adamant belief, it made him quicken his efforts, taking the homeworld would be vital for the survival of the Quarians.

A female quarian wearing a light blue enviro suit, walked up behind Rael and put her hand upon his shoulder, "Rael, you've been working fourteen hours straight," she said softly.

"What's that supposed to mean Hazt?" he said, a tired grin forming behind his opaque mask.

"Nothing, just think you should get some rest is all."

"I'll rest when the Homeworld is taken, but yes, I suppose I'll start making mistakes soon if I don't lie down for a few hours."

"Thank you," Hazt said, "I'll keep the neural network replicators up though while you're gone."

"You don't want to come get a drink with your old Captain?," he asked charmingly.

She let out a small chuckle, "Too much hassle, looks foolish too. You're welcome to make a fool of yourself."

"Yeah, and then get no respect from the crew,"he let out a slight cough, "Well, I'll see you later Lieutenant."

"Goodbye, Admiral."

Rael walked down the stairs from the central lab and walked into a short, narrow corridor. The lights were a pale red. The _Alarei_, the lab ship that they worked on was sort of a rare boon in the Flotilla; it was not a ship they had in the exile from the Homeworld, it had been an old Turian ship they had bought sometime before Rael's birth. And now it was pretty much his home at this point. Rael had a small bunk on the top level, a hard matress awaited him. He laid his head down and before he knew it he was asleep...

...being waken up by one of his Corporals, V'maelski Moro. The corporal were a black and white enviro suit.

"Admiral Zorah, Admiral Zorah" V'maelski said frantically, giving Rael a shake, flinching when the Admiral sat up, startled, "Hazt ordered me to come get you. Its urgent, she says."

"If she broke my Neural network replicators," he said with a scowl, "I'll suspend her from this project mark my words, I'll do it."

The old Quarian stomped down the corridor and when to the lab. Hazt was not there. He yelled at Moro, "Where the hell is she?"

"In the cargo bay, sorry."

"Should have mentioned that before."

He walked off to the back of the ship, and entered a hangar bay, a balcony hanging over the back side, a flat, black landing surface before him, sheen with polish. There was an old, broken Turian fighter on the side of the room, but there was something else. Several Quarians, including Hazt, were gathered around what seemed to be a pile of junk.

"What is this? Status report, Lieutenant," barked Rael.

He walked up to the wreck. And couldn't believe what he was seeing.

It looked humanoid, a bipedal, two huge legs, two huge arms, a square shaped chassis, and a head with a horned helmet. The creature had most of its color burned off, but there were flecks and spots of red still present.

"What the hell is this?" asked Rael again.

Hazt turned to face him, arms crossed, "I don't know. One of our salvage ships floating aroud at the edge of the system found it. Brought it back and noticed that it had...a face."

"And arms, and weapon systems attached to said arms," Rael noticed.

"Rael," Hazt said softly, "I think this is a Synthetic."

Rael scoffed, "How preposterous. Who would make such a thing in Council Space?"

"Consider this, we are at the edge of Council Space."

"You expect me to believe that this thing is from beyond the Galaxy?"

Hazt said nothing.

"Huh. You do expect me to believe this. This is nothing but a VI assisted infantry but larger, its a mech."

A private said, "Yeah that's what I think too. A heavily plated mech. Maybe a rich human commissioned it to be made. Though that wouldn't explain why its out here."

"We can make use of it though. We can scrap it up, use it for spare parts for what needs fixing. Scrape off any chips inside its processor, if it has one, Hazt."

"Sir," Hazt began, "I really think this is something more."

"Why?" said Rael with a sigh.

"I don't know, its just a gut feeling. I'd like to look deeper in it. See if I could find what secrets hide within."

"We don't need any mechs around here, but," Rael considered it, "Fine, as long as it doesn't take away from your other responsibilites, go ahead and tinker with it. Won't do us any harm."

"Unless its a fancy Geth," said another Private, and all of them laughed except Rael, who rebuked them sharply for laughing about Geth.

Hazt took a long glance at the body. Little did she know that her suspicions were right, it was something more.


	7. Chapter 7

The Humbling River

VII

Shepard looked at the three synthetics before him, locked in neon green hand cuffs that Shockwave had called Energon Cuffs. The ones that were called Decepticons by Shockwave were only three in number. There was a large one, about sixteen feet tall, with a box like chest, a slanted head and jawline, and slight patches of red and blue paint among faded steel. Shockwave called this one the leader, his name being Optimus Prime. Next to Optimus was a smaller one, red colored, a more spherical head and body, more rounded limbs, and was called Perceptor. He was a scientist, and not a fighter, yet had a deadly accurate Gauss Rifle. Shockwave saw fit to remove that from Perceptor. Lastly, there was one called "Ironhide", and he was all silver, with huge cannons that replaced his hands. They had been cut off.

Shepard stood in silence, looking over them.

Shockwave walked up from behind Shepard and said, "With this now over, we can move on to more pressing matters. Like how we are going to get off this world."

Shepard replied to Shockwave, "Are you capable of repairing your ship?"

"We left our planet, a dead world ravaged by war, incapable of supporting our livelihood anymore. We can not go back to it. Even if we were able to repair our ship, and find the necessary amounts of Energon to power the Space Bridge engin, our main method of travel, we would have nowhere to go to anyway. It would be be fruitless to repair the ship."

Shepard could sense their pleas coming, "And you," he said, "Want a lift I suppose, somewhere safe, where you can hide out and not be detected?"

"No," said Shockwave, "Take us to your leaders. We wish to warn them. These are not the first, there will be more the come, looking for Optimus and his ilk. There is still a war going on back on our homeworld. We left because we wanted to look for new worlds to colonize truthfully."

"What?" said Shepard, taken aback, "You want to talk to our leaders so they'll just give you a planet."

"A lot to ask, I know," said Shockwave, "but we have no other options. Just take me," pleaded Shockwave, "These will stay here."

Shockwave gestured to his Autobots who didn't seem like the friendliest bunch.

Shepard said to Shockwave, "Give me and my crew a moment."

"Of course."

Mordin was the first to strike against the plan, after they convened behind a rock. "Absolutely not. Terrible idea. Do not know what they are capable of. Could be lying straight to our faces. Say we blast them , keep Shockwave for experimentation."

Garrus added, "I'm not sure about going that far, but we need to leave them here, and let the Alliance know about this. If their requests are genuine, then the Alliance can help them out."

"If the Alliance even believes us," said Shepard doubtfully.

"Another thing," added Mordin, "No concrete evidence on Collector conflict with Autobots. Don't know if autobots attacked Collectors, or Collectors attacked Autobots."

Mordin made a good point. Shepard considered what they had said, then he said, "I want to interrogate the other faction. Hear their side of the story first."

"What's the point? They'll say the opposite viewpoint, and then we'll just know that one of them is lying."

"Right," said Shepard, "I know that, but, we need time for the Normandy to get into position. We need back up in case shit goes south. Also, I am just plain curious. Come on."

Shepard walked back to the Transformers, his team staying at a distance. The air rippled in the distance like a mirage. It was already mid-day on the planet, and the sun was only getting hotter. Sweat was forming on Shepard's brow with intensity.

"Shockwave," said Shepard, "I wish to talk to this, Optimus Prime, interrogate him."

Starscream glared at Shockwave, who disregarded Starscream and said cooly, "Why do you wish to do that, Shepard? He'll just tell you the opposite of what we told you."

"Of course," said Shepard with a smug smile, "But nethertheless it will help us make our decision."

Shockwave said nothing and simply stared. Finally after a long pause, the Autobot leader said, "Fine, get up, Prime. Follow the human."

Shepard waved Prime to follow him behind the rocks. Garrus stood on top on overwatch while Mordin paced around Shepard, trying his best to seem somewhat threatening.

"So," said Shepard, "Can you learn our langauge like Shockwave did?"

The Transformer raised his shackled hands and did the same process as Shockwave . In a few seconds the Autobot gruffly said, "Can you understand me?"

"Yeah," Shepard said, "We hear you loud and clear."

"What do you want from me? Shockwave is right, we will tell you the truth, and in your hesitation you will be unable to trust either of us."

"Yes, giant synthetic lifeforms that can transform into vehicles and pack a massive payload, are a little hard to trust," said Shepard wittily, "But I'm sure you can understand."

Optimus gave a satisfied noise and then said, "The truth is that we, and my compatriots are the real Autobots. They are the Decepticons."

"Oh yeah, and do you have any way to prove this?" pressed Shepard.

"No," said Optimus, hanging his head, "which is why this interrogation is useless."

"It is," said Shepard, "But we're buying time, time so we can be in a position of power. We have a ship, a ship that could wipe out the Autobots, Decepticons, whoever they are, the people led by Shockwave."

"Interesting," nodded Optimus Prime, "A ship that could no doubt carry me and my soldiers to safety."

"If safety was what we wanted to give you."

"Tell me," said Optimus, turning the tables, "Are you a man of honor Commander? Would you leave prisoners of war to be executed without trial? For that it was they will surely do to us, once you leave and we are not needed."

Shepard frowned, "I'll be asking the questions here."

"We can give you technologies," said Optimus, "As we speak I am going through the files that I downloaded from your device."

"Could you have shut it off if you wanted to?"

"Of course, but that wouldn't do any good now would it?"

Shepard let past a small grin, and said, "True. What technologies?"

"I read before me, that you are dependent on these things, called Mass Relays?"

"Yeah, what about them?"

"We can make you independent, because the Decepticons now know your galaxy is ripe for plunder. You may believe you can take them on, but how safe are you really? They will infiltrate you, they will find a way, they have ways of breaking into your infrastructure as easily as I broke into your omni-tool's files. How long will you be able to stand against thousands of them, for there are many still on Cyberton, and others who tried to flee as well. As there are Autobots of course..."

Shepard listened, as a grave silence filled him with dread. If what the creature said was true, another Synthetic enemy, one not quite as powerful as the Reapers but still powerful, would be coming. And if there was one thing the Alliance and every race in Citadel Space could not afford, was a war before the inevitable darkness that was to come.

"Shepard," said Mordin, " A word if you may."

"Alright, I'll be right back, Optimus Prime."

Optimus simply nodded.

"Reccomend we modify original plan," stated Mordin simply.

"Why?"

"Ran scenarios in head. Optimus Prime's assertion backed by logic; they came here, and did not use mass relays. Mass Relays controlled by Reapers. But, with independent transportation, we could gain advantage over Reapers. Wartime advantage. Reapers unable to predict attacks. And so, recommend take Optimus with us, but also take Shockwave with us. Then," said Mordin, pulling Shepard close to him, "I will disable them both, find somwhere to imprison them, Ceberus might be key. The risk is worth it."

Shepard looked Mordin straight in the eyes then said, "Are you sure about this?"

"Certainity in plan not guaranteed, but the rewards, the rewards could indeed be great."

"Alright," said Shepard, amazed at what he was about to say and do, and worried that this would all backfire in a matter of seconds, "Lets get it done. Normandy, are you on standby?"

"Yes, Commander," Joker responded.

"Stay where you are, chances are, this could get hairy."


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: Not my best chapter, but I needed to tell what happened to Megatron, and needed time to decide on what's going to happen next with Shepard and Friends._

* * *

The Humbling River

VIII

The colony of Fehl Prime was a quiet outpost; a little too quiet for 2nd Lieutenant James Vega. He was just routinely walking in a straight line, back and forth along the edge of the shuttle base, in the middle of the cool night, with an Assault rifle in his hands and nothing to entertain him but the loose thoughts that strayed into his mind every few minutes. It wasn't a great job, and it wasn't a glorious job, but he still felt a little pride, since the colony had flourished under the direction of Alliance command, and with the help of James and his own squad, led by Captain Toni, a hard-ass son of a bitch if there ever was one.

The shuttle base was located on the top of a orange rock plateau, with small desert shrubs dotting the ground around. There was a two meter high fence around the facility, around the entire colony actually, and behind it was countless canyons and ravines, carved out by millions of years of weathering. It was a beautiful view, not that James paid any mind anymore; he had seen it too often, and now he wished that there was something for him to shoot at to break up the monotony.

A beep sounded on James's comm, and he put a finger to the ear piece, "Report," James answered.

"We got a Mantis coming in, the one that we lost contact with. Just letting you know," Command informed him

"Copy."

A few hours ago, a Mantis gunship had been reported disappeared. However, it was something that happened routinely, the magnetic field of the planet caused gunships and their communicators to jam near the poles. Nobody was too worried, but it was strange since the gunship was not all that near the pole this time. The signal had been lost near one of the large northern seas.

James could see the forward lights of the gunship poking out on the horizon, slowing coming in. The wind picked up a little, causing goosebumps to form a little bit on Vega's arms. Nights got cold on Fehl Prime, and days were hot. The gunship got closer and closer, and loading crew came out with fluorescent orange jackets, getting ready to refuel the gunship so they could finish their shift as soon as possible.

The gunship hovered over and landed on the tarmac, and the loading crew scrambled too it. But James took a quick glance and realized that there was no pilot inside the Gunship. Maybe the tint made it too dark to see, but he was sure that he should have been able to see the pilot. Then all of a sudden something strange happened.

The wings of the Mantis swung up.

James was pretty sure that they weren't designed to do that.

The different parts of the Mantis started swinging around and clicking around in different postions, and the loading crew took a step back. A thing, a monster, started to form from the various parts of the Mantis, and it resembled something of a humanoid, but made out of machinery. The thing, whatever it was roared, a powerful, hungry roar, and its eyes, and parts of its body glowed with a purple light. Then it started firing missiles.

James called out on the comm, "WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, REQUEST IMMEDIATE FIRE SUPPORT AT AIRBASE , DELTA FIVE-ONE"

"What are we under attack by, Air Base FIVE-ONE?"

James didn't know how to describe it, the monster picked up a shuttle and flung it into the air, which landed in a radio tower, exploding. Flames lit up the tarmac, and the creature fired missiles into the Hangar bay. The Hangar bays exploded in orange and white flames, pieces of slag and hot metal raining down onto the road in a scalding torrent. James started running, along with the rest of the troops not yet killed by the onslaught.

The monster stormed up the hill, and James realized it was making its way towards the Main Base of Operations. "FOB DELTA, Attacker is a mech of some kind, and its making its way up toward you, advise turret defenses up now."

"WILCO," said the Base, "Squads arming up now."

"We got to move!" yelled a Loading team member, "That bastard is going to notice us sooner or later."

"What the hell is it?" yelled someone else, in the fray, James didn't know anybody, he was just a guard.

"I got no idea," said James.

They scrambled as fast as they could up the hill, but the mech over took them and passed by, firing at the turrets that barred its way up to the FOB. The turrets rained mass accelerator rounds, in a flurry of blue-white lights, but they seemed to do little damage or have any effect on the mech. It fired a puls of energy at them, and they deactived, lit up with sparks.

"Damn!" James yelled, "Its got EMPS. I'm going to go look for some heavy weapons, who has clearance to the Armory?"

A tall black man ran up, his name tag spelled out "Rigby" ran up and said, "None of us do, we need an officer, which would be you, sir."

But James didn't follow regulations to the letter, he kept his Avenger with him in his barracks, and thus his armory key was not around. "Damn it," he cursed.

The mech was out of sight now, but he heard its attack on the Comm, "FOB Delta is under attack! Enemy has broken our forward defense line! Its heading for the heart of the base, NO-" a sharp crackled sounded the death of Command, Captain Rogers, or Baseplate as the Marines knew him.

"Ah, shit," said Rigby in despair "Ah shit, we're screwed now."

"No," said James defiantly, "Stay here, I'm going to run to my barracks and hope its not blown up by that thing yet. I'll get the Armory key, and come back, and we'll get out the Grenade launchers. Stay behind cover until I get back."

They ran behind some rocks, made available by a piece of torn fence. James ran up the hill as fast as he could, maneuvering around pieces of burning slag and charred corpses, some of which had not yet died , moaning in agony. One of them looked at him, no longer recognizable, and stretched out its hand, pleading for help. James looked away and kept running up though, there was nothing he could do for him if he didn't stop the mech creature.

To his great relief his Barracks had not been destroyed; not completely, a shuttle had been tossed into the middle of the barracks, setting fire to it. James ran inside, coughing as smoked pierced his lungs. Fire blazed all around him, and he started to sweat as he tried to move his way through. He ducked under a fallen support beam, and got to his room. Thankfully, his bunk was still intact, and so was his possessions crate. He pulled it out, recoiling as the hot metal of the bunk touched his skin. James gritted his teeth and ignored it enough to pull the box out and then opened it.

He found the key card to the Armory and snatched it. Then he ran back outside and off towards the Armory. The Loading crew members were still waiting by the rocks, thankfully none of them had decided to retreat yet. There was nowhere else to go on the planet anyway, short of the main colony, and that was too far away to make it on their own. James led them to open up the Armory.

The inside of the Armory was decorated with many Avenger Assault Rifles and Mantis Sniper Rifles lining the walls on stainless steel racks. James moved to the back to the Heavy Weapons section, and found a Grenade launcher sitting on a rack by itself. He found some more grenades but no other launchers.

"Rigby, do you and the other members know how to shoot?"

"We're not snipers, but we know how to pull a trigger."

"Good, arm yourself with guns on the wall, we're going to draw its fire, then I'm going to flank it and try and take it with the Grenade Launcher."

"Draw its fire?" stuttered a fearful, tall, brown-haired man, another loading team member, "You want us to go up agains that thing? No way?"

A few others murmured in dissent but James yelled over them, "Look I know you're scared! I am too, but if we don't stop that thing it will attack the colony. And I'm not willing to let that happen, are any of you?"

A few them vocally showed their unwillingness to let the colony be taken, but others were not convinced. Finally James said, "We're going now, that's an order!"

They picked up weapons, the reluctant fighters shaking with fear, while the more confident ones strode along with James as they raced back up the hill. The FOB was in ruins, turrets broken and strewn about on the ground , and more charred corpses. Finally, they could hear sounds of battle, and James saw the creature standing amidst a group of Marines, who were firing right at it. The creature seemed to regard them as an annoyance, its sharp, malicious eyes looking down at them in fury. It fired a missile down at them and several of them exploded, cooked limbs flying around in a dash of smoke and white-hot light.

"There it is," pointed James, "Get behind cover and wait until my go."

James flanked around the side of some rubble and watched the creature stride in through the Command post wall, tearing through it as if it were merely paper. It stood still for a moment, then reached down on to one knee, as if it were examining something. James tried to think of what was located in that part of the Command post, but nothing came to mind. He continued to walk around until he found a tower. It was taller than the creature thankfully, and so he started to ascend, climbing up each rung of the ladder, the grenade launcher slung on his back.

As James rose, he could see what the creature was doing. It was touching, placing its hands, or what appeared to look like hands , a huge block of servers. That's what it was doing. It was hacking or getting into the Base's information servers. It was doing research, reconnaissance and James knew that was bad, and that it had to stop.

James called out and waved to his people down on the ground, "FIRE!" he yelled violently. At that moment a few of them started firing, including Rigby and a couple others, but the rest split off and ran away, heading around in the other direction. The monster noticed the shots being fired at it and snarled with rage, firing a missile at the combatants.

James then fired a round from his grenade launcher, which hit the creature's face. The creature stumbled back, as the explosion ruptured its face. A slight mark on what as far as James could tell, was a cheek. It looked puzzled, and gently touched the mark. James fired again, hitting the creature's foot, but that did nothing. And then the creature looked up and saw James in the tower.

It roared.

James said softly, "Oh shit."

The creature fired into the tower, and it collapsed, and James felt his stomach and his balls drop in free fall. Pieces of roof and rubble fell on top of him, and then he lost consciousness.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's Note: No the Story hasn't ended. There will be a big Fat, THE END OF BOOK 1, when that happens._

* * *

The Humbling River

IX

Shepard, Mordin and Garrus followed close behind Optimus as they returned to the Autobot, (or Decepticon, at this point Shepard didn't know who was who,) camp. The Autobots looked at them untrusting glances, looking upon them uncomfortably. Garrus gripped his rifle more tightly.

Shockwave approached them and said, "So, what have you decided, Commander?"

Shepard looked to Shockwave, then to the other Autobots, and then to the sky, to see if the Normandy was above them yet. Then he coughed and said, "We have decided to take you aboard the Normandy."

Strangely Shockwave seemed to give a sigh of relief, which seemed irregular to Shepard since Shockwave was a Synthetic. The other Autobots nodded in assent and seemed to be grinning, as far as Shepard could tell.

"Thank you," began Shockwave, "We will not squander-"

"But," interrupted Shepard pointedly, "We will also be taking the Decepticon leader Optimus Prime, to a military base for inspection and due protocol, being a war criminal. That is just how we do things, and he will be returned to you if Command if they deem it correct."

The other Autobots started to get riled up and Shockwaved pleaded, "What? You trust that thing don't you? He's lying to you, what did you tell the human, bastard!" yelled Shockwave as he ran up to Optimus and pointed at him. "You can't dictate what we do to our enemies human," said Shockwave coldly, "He has killed many of my brothers-"

"That is the price of your passage," said Shepard just as coldly, "If he's truly just a prisoner of war, then I'm sure you wouldn't care if we ran tests on him."

Shockwave seemed taken aback, "But, that is not protocol, we can not let you do this, that would be immoral-"

"Oh, give it up Shockwave," said one of the other Autobots, the short one with the triangular chassis and the jet wings.

"Starscream!" yelled Shockwave, losing control.

"They don't trust us, and we can't let them learn the secrets of our technology, not if we wish to dominate them. I already have my sights set on these worlds, these suns will produce Energon cubes beyond our wildest dreams!" Starscream chuckled.

"YOU FOOL!," yelled Shockwave, but Starscream paid no heed, extending out a weapon from underneath his arm.

In a flash of orange energy, Starscream fired a round at Shepard in his team. It missed Shepard, but exploded onto the ground behind him, sending him flying into the air. He heard the yell of Optimus and Shockwave at the same time.

Shockwave fired a beam from his main eye which subdued Starscream. The world spun around Shepard and he stuttered on the Comm, "Normandy! We need fire support now!"

"Roger," replied Joker, calmly.

Shepard looked around him. Garrus was on the ground, groaning in pain, his right arm blown off. And Mordin, Shepard couldn't even bear to look at Mordin, who was suffering from severe burns everywhere, his face and arms charred like burned meat, spotted with open flesh wounds, red and glaring. Optimus yelled out from behind him, "Shepard, cut me now if you want to live!"

Shepard stumbled up. Shockwave and Starscream were fighting hand to hand, and the other Autobots (Shepard now realizing that they were probably the Decepticons,) hadn't picked a side yet. Optimus' comrades were still looking on, shackled , but too far away for Shepard to get too. Shepard cursed and ran towards Optimus.

"Alright, I'm trusting you, for now," growled Shepard.

Shepard undid the energon shackles. At that moment the other Decepticons, Soundwave and Barricade, noticed and yelled out in tandem, "The Human freed Optimus, stop fighting you idiots!"

Starscream and Shockwave paused their fighting and turned around, just as Starscream was shot through the chest with a bolt of energy from Optimus's gun.

"Arrgh!," Starscream screamed as he fell to the ground, disabled and starting to die in the hot orange sand.

Shockwave stood up, and fired a shot at Starscream's face, which then exploded.

"Good riddance you slag-head," said Shockwave.

Shockwave turned around and saw the other Decepticons transform and fly off, just as the Normandy fired a shot at them. Soundwave missed the Gardian beam by inches, and they flew off into the distance, thrusters blaring. Shockwave said softly, "This is not good," Just as Optimus tackled him. Optimus shoved his face into the sand, and shackled his hands behind him. "You," growled Optimus savagely, "Stay put, Decepticon."

Shockwave lay on the ground, arms behind his back, not moving at all. The battle was finished.

* * *

"Starscream," grumbled Shockwave, "Megatron should have killed him a long time ago. Not even the old brute would have done something as stupid as breaking our cover. All I needed was a little more time, and the humans would have been reasoned with. But I suppose its all over now, huh, Optimus?"

Optimus kicked Shockwave, "Shut up," he spat.

"MIRANDA," yelled Shepard, "Send a Medical team and Dr. Chakwas down immediately, we got wounded down here."

"What the hell happened down there, Shepard?" questioned Miranda testily.

"Just do it, Garrus is going to bleed out if we don't do something soon, and Mordin has third degree burns."

"Roger that, Commander."

"You," said Shepard angrily, striding towards Optimus accusingly, "What the hell is going on here?"

"The Decepticons, tried to trick you, just as I said."

"I have no reason to trust you either."

"Oh really?" said Optimus angrily, "I could kill you right now, no witnesses, and you don't have the guns to stop me, and I just saved your life from the Decepticons."

The two stared down each other than Shepard said, "You're right. You're absolutely freaking right. But you want something."

"I don't want anything," said Optimus, "It is the Decepticons who wanted your worlds."

Shepard sighed and said, "Well I suppose we should unshackle your friends."

The two of them walked over to Ironhide and Perceptor, cutting their shackles. Ironhide immediately pulled out his weapons and trained them on Shepard and said, "Permission to engage Optimus."

"Permission denied, we mean them no harm."

"Seems like it would be pretty convenient for them if we just disappeared," said Ironhide scathingly.

Perceptor became unshackled and said, "Look, lets all calm down, and sort this situation down. We have Shockwave as a prisoner, that's a positive."

"Hey," said Shepard, "Behind the rock you said you would give us technology."

"You did?" said Perceptor, shocked.

"I was hoping to sympathize with them. I still will, but we have the other Decepticons to deal with. We need to stop them before they find vehicles with interstellar capabilities and transform into them," explained Optimus.

"I don't think that will happen," said Shepard.

"On what evidence do you make this hypothesis?," questioned Perceptor.

"We don't have any ships their size with Mass Effect Cores," explained Shepard, "Now someone help me secure my team mates, they are injured!"

"Mass Effect Core?" said Perceptor aside to Ironhide who shrugged.

Shepard ran to Garrus who was coughing, lying in a pool of sticky blue blood. Shepard took out his omni-tool, and tried his best to apply medi gel on the wounds, stitching them together. But medi-gel couldn't over come everything, and Shepard could even see bone underneath the flesh. If they didn't get him to Chakwas soon, there was no guarantee he wouldn't bleed out.

Optimus went over to Mordin and picked him up, carrying the Salarian delicately in his arms like a parent might carry a child. Mordin was still breathing but had went into shock and was covered all over with burns, parts of his lab suit burned away, and his face was still smoking. "I am sorry," said Optimus, "That there is nothing we can do."

"Its alright," said Shepard, trying to help Mordin next, "I don't imagine you see too many organics?"

"No," sighed Optimus with regret.

"Is prothesis available in your technology?" asked Perceptor.

"Yes, but we'd have to take him to the ship, which I hope he still has time for."

Ironhide humphed and said, "Truly _tragic_, the loss of some insects,"

"Ironhide," growled Prime, "That's enough."

"I'll just be over there," said Ironhide, slinking behind some rocks.

Doing all he could, Shepard wiped the sweat off his brow, just as a shuttle glided down aroud them, settling in the sand next to them. A flurry of dust kicked up from the ground, as Chakwas, and a couple of Cerberus crew jumped out. Chakwas gasped in horror at the sight of not only the injured teammates, but at the monstrous synthetics in front of them. The Cerberus crew were shaken.

"Karin," pleaded Shepard, "Trust them for now. Please take Garrus and Mordin."

Composing herself, Chakwas said, "Of course, Commander, Sheldon, Brian, please get out the stretchers."

"Yes ma'am," said the Cerberus crew in unison, one of them being a slender caucasian man with a mop of brownish hair, and a bald older man, also caucausian. They took out some stretchers and placed Garrus on one, and placed him on a bench inside the Shuttle. They took Mordin and put him on the adjacent one. There was no room for anyone else to sit.

"I need to go," said Shepard to Optimus, "What will you do now?"

"When you want us, you will know where to find us. We will stay here for now, and hunt down the decepticons," said Optimus.

Shepard merely nodded and got into the shuttle. It picked up, the doors slammed shut, and hovered off back to the Normandy.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note: Short Chapter, but hopefully Interesting. Stay Tuned for More._

* * *

The Humbling River

X

A flash of blue static appeared in front of the Illusive Man. He sat in a simple two legged chair, a shot of scotch in one hand, and a smoking cigarette in the other, an ash tray underneath. The blue static dissipated and a well built human female, with shoulder length hair, and wearing a skin-tight Cerberus outfit, hexagonal patterns imprinted all over it. It was Miranda Lawson, also known as the Illusive Man's pet, and the commander of the Lazarus cell. And she did not appear very pleased.

"Miranda," the Illusive man simply stated, raising his glass in acknowledgement, then finishing it off, "What have you got to tell me?"

"The mission objectives were succeeded, but there were, and are, complications," she said hesitantly.

The Illusive man was silent, but unfazed, "Complications? Elaborate."

"Well lets prioritize things. In relation to our primary mission of stopping the Collectors, its possible we may lose a team mate. Vakarian was injured, his arm, blown off in combat, but we can easily replace his arm, so long as he doesn't die from the blood loss. But the Doctor..."

The Illusive Man sighed with distaste then took a draw of his cigarette, "What the hell exactly happened down there, Miranda?"

"Shepard isn't telling me everything. All he said is that he engaged hostiles, he said that they were Collectors, and they got away with the colonists. But I know he's lying, one because I can plain tell, the Commander being easy to read, and second, because I saw images of a Collector ship, the one that killed Commander Shepard, downed and wrecked on the planet. Mordin Solus was exposed to third degree burns, and lost a lot of blood as well."

The Illusive man absorbed this information, then said, "And you were not privy to any of the mission comms at all? How do you not know what happened?"

"Well, Shepard cut me off from his Comm, set it only able to contact Moreau, until he needed me to alert Chakwas. I had no knowledge of what was going on. I was working in my office, when I heard that Vakarian and Solus were being brought to the medical bay in intensive care."

The Illusive man paused once again and said, "He still doesn't trust us."

"No, sir."

"Which means we will have to find out ourselves what just happened down there."

"Yes, sir."

The Illusive man sighed, "With the Collector ship down, we now have some downtime. I would assume that they have other ships but, it would be also safe to assume that they will be on the defensive now. This new enemy, one that can take out Collectors, is our new priority."

"Understood, sir."

"Very good, stand by for new orders. If Shepard proves unreliable, we may have to take steps to ensure he can't cause any trouble for us."

"Also understood, sir."

"Good, you are dismissed. Inform me by E-mail of what becomes of the Turian and the Doctor."

Miranda fizzed out and left.

The Illusive Man frowned. Then he got up and turned to his many screens, flashing with countless threads of information. He manipulated some interface buttons and said, "Contact , Operative Leng."

A loading screen appeared for a few seconds then a dark, foreboding voice sounded out, "Operative Leng Reporting. Ready for orders, sir."

"Take a task force to this coordinates, on the Bedouin system. I'll fill you on the way there."

"As you command."


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: I've decided to make this a trilogy. This is probably the last time we have a chapter from Shepard's viewpoint until Book 2._

* * *

The Humbling River

XI

Shepard stood in the med-bay, keeping vigil over the badly burned and scarred body of Mordin Solus. Mordin's body was charred in several places, and there had been many open sores , bright red and glaring. They had now been covered up with white guaze that secreted medi-gel for gradual healing, and a sedative kept Mordin from waking up in extreme pain.

"He's going to make it," said Karin Chakwas reverently.

"Good job Dr. Chakwas."

"Just doing my job Commander, I have seen burns worse than this."

"What about Garrus?" the Commander asked pleadingly.

Chakwas sighed. They looked behind themselves to see Garrus lying on a bed across the way. His arm had been stitched up, a blue colored stump in place. A breathing mask had been put over Garrus' face, and a drip had been attached to his thin arms. Without his armor he seemed much thinner, more frail, less threatening. _That must have been the reason why Turians never take their armor off_, Shepard mused, _they don't look too scary without it_.

"I don't know Commander," said Chakwas regretfully, "He's lost a lot of blood. As we speak I've sent out requests to contacts, for a transfusion of Turian blood, as it was not replaced after Garrus was injured the first time, back on Omega, when I fixed him up then. Also, this is more extreme."

"Hm," was all Shepard's reply. He walked over to Garrus, looking down upon him with sadness in his eyes. "Come on, Garrus," he began, "I know you can get past this. You survived a missile to the face," Shepard let out a sad laugh, "You fought by my side against Saren. You fought all those Mercs on Omega. Don't give up now, buddy."

Shepard stood over him for a few more minutes, then sighed and turned around.

"Keep an eye on him Dr. Chakwas," he said as he walked by her, "Let me know how he progresses, I'll be in my cabin."

"Aye Commander," she said, as he left the med bay and got onto the elevator.

Shepard took the elevator up to his cabin and walked in side. Frustrated, he sat down on his bed, laid down and stared out the ceiling window for a little while. So much of what was going on didn't make sense, and was too much to handle. This was where he went to lose control, so that people wouldn't see him act the way that wouldn't befit a leader. It had only be four weeks. Four weeks of being alive again, and already terrible things were happening. At leas the had the consolation that the Collector threat, for the moment was put on pause, until they got another ship at least.

Shepard thought about his next course of action carefully. He went over variables in his head, and decided to do something regarding the Transformers. It had to be dealt with now, before the Reapers arrived and made things worse. He got up from his bed and walked over to the communications terminal above his computer.

"Who do you want to contact?" the Comm VI asked.

"Get me Councilor David Anderson," said Shepard. If there was somebody who would believe Shepard and get an investigation going, it was Anderson. He owed the Autobot leader that much for saving his life. Besides giving them a fair chance for survival, Shepard just wanted the problem to go away. Not that he believed it would.

Shepard waited for a few seconds, beginning to tap impatiently on the desk, until finally the VI said, "Connection confirmed. Standby."

An orange screen flared up in front of Shepard, and a middle aged African American man with a completely bald head and intelligent eyes appeared on the other end. "Shepard," he said, "What do you need me for?"

"I hope I wasn't interrupting anything important."

"No," Anderson sighed forlolrnly, "Nothing but listening to Udina rattle off more expenses that humanity is expected to pay for some stupid reason or another. Everything all right?"

"What I'm about to say is going to sound crazy," Shepard asserted.

"More stuff about the Reapers, or the Collectors?"

"No, something more tangible this time."

"Oh, Batarians?"

"I wish, I could take care of them easy if it was them, but no. How much do you know about the colony of Bedouin?"

"Not much," replied Anderson, "All I know is that its an Iridium Mining facility. A real boon out on the edge of the Attican Traverse. And we lost contact with it ten hours ago. You know why it went out of contact?"

"The Illusive Man," began Shepard, "Alerted me to a Collector attack on the planet, but the Collectors were apparently under attack themselves. He gave me a noise sample that I just uploaded to you. Check it out."

Anderson listened to it, then listened to it again. He let out a thinking _hmmmm, _as if he was pondering and said, "Strange."

"Yeah, so we went to Bedouin to check it out. The Collectors had indeed attacked the colony, but their ship, the ship that killed me, is dead, gone. Because the Collectors themselves were attacked by something stronger, and something they couldn't predict."

"You have my attention," said Anderson.

"So we did recon, and found these things. Synthetics, but not Geth size. Big. Like ten feet and up, some were even sixteen feet by my estimate. We watched two factions of them, trying to kill each other, but then one of them approached us. With one scan of my omni-tool, it, he, whatever, learned the human language. In ten seconds! Then it tried to trick us, by saying that its faction was good, and the other was evil or something, I don't know. I didn't trust them for a second, so one of them got impatient, and it tried to kill me and my team. The other faction saved our lives."

Anderson took this all too well, and was quiet when he responded, "And they are still there?"

"Yes, the ones that saved us, they call themselves Autobots. I don't fully trust them either but, they saved my life. I owe them at least a chance, and I needed to make you aware of this incident. They can't get off world, as their ship is broken. Also, it doesn't run on Mass Effect Technology so it can't use the Mass Relays. In fact..." Shepard paused, "They mentioned that they knew how to travel across space without Mass Effect Technology..."

Anderson nodded and said, "Shepard, you must know by now that I'm the only person who would believe all the weird shit you tell me."

Shepard chuckled, "No doubt about that sir."

"I planned on having Hackett send an N7 team to check it out. I will definitely get on it right away. I believe you, your word is good enough for me. But, what do you propose we do about these... Autobots?"

"Thought you might be better at that kind of diplomacy then me, Anderson."

"I'll bet," Anderson chuckled himself, "Alright. What we'll do is offer them political asylum. Treat them with respect and hopefully press them. But we'll keep them our little secret, make this strictly N7 knowledge. Which means I'll have to leave out in my report, that you were the one to tip me off. Seeing as you are Cerberus at the moment."

"I don't see that lasting much longer. If there is a time to take out the Collectors its now, before they get another ship. We haven't cracked the Omega 4 Relay yet, but, we're working on it. Before you know it, I'll be back in the Alliance."

"Good to hear it," said Anderson proudly, but then he paused and before he turned it off he said, "And what about Cerberus. Will they just let you keep their ship? I wonder how you are going to get out of that hole safely."

"I'll worry about that when the time comes," said Shepard bravely, "Right now, our only concern should be putting an end to the Reapers. Which is why these...Autobots could be important. Just imagine not being reliant on Mass Relays."

"It would certainly make things harder for our foes."

"Exactly. Well, I better get going, I have wounded to tend to."

"Who got wounded?"

"The ground team, Professor Mordin Solus and...Garrus."

"The C-sec Detective? Damn, he was a good soldier. I hope he recovers."

"So do I Anderson, so do I."


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's Note: Yes, there are Black Ops 2 characters in ME now. Deal with it. _

* * *

The Humbling River

XII

Commander David "Section" Mason was not doing anything really important when he heard his named blared out over the comm of the SSV _Kilimanjaro_, one of the Alliance's eight Dreadnoughts. He was simply going over the various attachment combinations that belonged to the M-86 Mattock, the semi-automatic hybrid weapon that was now becoming the most popular assault rifle next to the mainstay, the M-8 Avenger. But David stopped what he was doing immediately, scanned the room, and looked over to his bunk mate , Mike Harper, who was busy checking the extranet.

Harper sighed and said, "Well lets go see what they want."

Harper was in his low thirties, short brown hair that appeared kind of frazzled above a high widow's peak. There were many creases on his forehead from years of combat experience, and his face could easily be described as rugged. In contrast, Section was more smooth. However, they were only given the privilege of having more hairstyle than most because of their rank and their profession; it was the little the Navy could spare them in appreciation for the kind of high risk, high impact missions that was part of the day to day routine in the N7.

"Alright," said Section, putting away his attachment kit, and stowing it away under his bunk, "Let's get cracking."

The two of them left the room and went down a narrow corridor, passing by busy crewmen dressed in Alliance blue, wearing the signature berets that were commonly seen adorning servicemen. The Navy had to keep some its pride, as did the Marines, but nobody could really see much distinction anymore. Without the space fleet, there was no way for marines to get anywhere, and without the marines, battles could never be won on land, or in the case of Section and Harper, battles that would never be told to anyone, could never be operated to save Alliance lives.

The _Kilimanjaro_ was so big that there were elevators that ran several stories in the one kilometer space vessel. Most of the interior was a dull silver, with the occasional, twittering blue and red lights running through the paneling like some living being, watching them with awe. Harper and Section paid little attention to such poetic thoughts though; the ship did its thing and they did theirs. They took the elevator up to the Command floor, and immediately had to salute to some superior officers once they got up there.

"Can't stop for everyone man," complained Harper, who didn't like to be late.

"You're telling me," replied Section, distracted by the sheer amount of screens and panels being shifted and moved in real time. There was one where a Marine was talking to them from some green and white planet, with shores like crystals, and she was complaining about something, though Section had no idea what. This caused Section to bump into a person.

"Pardon me," he said, but then he caught himself staring into the blue eyes of another N7, a woman. She had short blonde hair, crimson lips, (lip-stick being another small allowance in the Alliance Navy), and flawless cream-colored skin.

She laughed and said, "Its fine, it would appear as if we are headed in the same direction. The briefing room."

Section forgot about that, but then he stumbled upon himself and quickly stuttered, "Oh yeah, this way."

Harper rolled his eyes.

The three of them walked into the briefing room, a large circular room with a galaxy map in the middle, appearing to be glowing due to the lack of lights in the room. There was nobody there except for them and a large African-American man over in the corning, arms crossed, looking smug about something.

They all took a seat, but immediately sat up ten seconds later when a man dressed in a Naval Commander's uniform walked in.

"Admiral on Deck!" stated Section, saluting. Everyone did as well, including the African-American man who stood alone.

The man in front of them was no other than the legendary Admiral Hackett, a man of great strategic prowess and loved by all of his troops, or at least all troops Section had meant. The man was old, but he had a fighting spirit that trounced pretty much everybody else's and boosted morale just by the mere mention of his name.

"At ease," Hackett grumbled , and they took their seats.

Hackett pressed a few buttons on the screens and a small, white and beige colored planet appeared in front of them. "This," began Hackett, "Is Bedouin. One of our smaller colonies, out in the Attican Beta. A desert world, but valuable due to its prescence of Iridium. Yesterday, in Galactic Standard, we lost contact with the colony. We assumed that it was once again Collectors and feared the worst. But apparently, thanks to information that I am not allowed to divulge to you, we were informed that there is something...more delicate involved."

Harper and Section gave each other glances, but could not think of anything in the short-term that was worse than Collectors. Everybody feared, and had varying degrees of belief in, the Reapers though, due to the battle of the Citadel two years before. Commander Shepard, who Section had even met once, claimed that the Reapers were real, which was good enough for Section, but so far Command was not convinced enough to do anything in preparation for such an invasion that Shepard claimed. Since there had only been one Reaper, and much of the physical blame could also be put on the Geth, Section understood their caution, as a build up of military strength without real reason could lead to strained relations with the other Council races. These relations were already in jeopardy because of Shepard's blatant decision to have the fleet ignore the Destiny Ascension and not save it.

"According to our sources," continued Hackett, "We have reason to believe that we have stumbled into something that we should have no part in, but due to changing circumstances, will have to be part of. An alien race, synthetic based, from an unknown world, crash landed on Bedouin. Apparently there are two factions of these things, and one faction attacked and killed the Collector force that had landed to abduct the colony. We don't know whether or not these aliens killed the humans or not. However, it was found out by..."Hacket paused, "Someone, that one of the alien factions is willing to trade technology for political asylum. And that, however unbelievable that is, is your mission. Make contact with the aliens, offer them the political asylum they seek, and bring them to a secure Alliance facility for questioning."

It was so quiet in the room, that Section could hear his pulse. This was coming from Admiral Hackett, and it was surely not impossible, humanity themselves were a new race that had only recently been discovered. So Section had no choice to believe it, but it still seemed somewhat alarming. First contact with an alien race, and the even bigger question, who got the information?

"Now," finished Hackett, "Any questions, that I can answer?"

"Sir, how are we able to distinguish the factions from each other," said the blonde Marine, "Are we going to offer political asylum to both of them then?"

Section could hear the unspoken, I doubt that that will turn out well.

"It was reported that there was a faction that had made hostile moves at the Recon team," said Hackett, "And that they were reduced to two, fleeing from the scene. It is most likely going to be obvious, as long as you are not attacked. However, we will be running the Frigate, SSV Yorktown, above to provide Close Air Support. If the other faction however shows no intent of hostility, let them aboard as well. We can't trust either of them really, but we can rely more on the ones willing to give us technology."

"Right," said the blonde Marine."

"Anything else?"

"Sir," said the Black man, "What is the technology they are offering?"

"I don't really know," said Hackett, "It must be important though, because it was our Councilor Anderson who ordered me to get this done.

Everybody went silent. Now they knew this was important.

"Alright then," said Hackett with an air of finality, "You will leave and make the jump to Bedouin in 0200 hours. Good luck team."

Section saluted and said, "Thank you, sir."

Hackett closed in on him , shook his hand and then pulled him in so he could whisper, "Keep your wits about you. I don't want you going in dark. This info came from Commander Shepard. I'm not allowed to tell because he's working with Ceberus. But I needed to ensure that you knew you could trust the intel."

Section nodded and shaked the Admiral's hand firmly, "Don't worry sir, we'll get it done."


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note: I am pleased of the good reception this story has been getting, and would like to thank those who have read it and reviewed it for their support._

* * *

The Humbling River

XIII

The SSV _Yorktown_ was a sturdy frigate; a small, fast ship that was primarily focused around one function: the movement of special ops teams to their area of operations. It didn't have a stealth system like some of the Turian designed frigates that were supposedly in production, but it did have a Thanix Cannon that could rip through ships much larger than itself. The _Yorktown _was kind of shaped like a banana; a banana with two large wings on both the port and starboard sides that stretched out very wide, about twenty-five meters long each. On the ship's belly lay the Thanix cannon, and out from underneath the ship's docking bay, a small Kodiak shuttle flew out and headed down to the planet of Bedouin far below.

Inside the shuttle, four soldiers sat awkwardly scrunched together. All of them were now under Section's command, and all of them were dressed in coal black _N7_ armor, with helmets covering their heads. Harper had always had a flair for the theatrical, and thus a while back had purchased a Death Mask, and had set the optical lenses to a red glow, making him somewhat intimidating. Across from Harper and Section was the blonde marine, her name now known to Section as Mary Prescott, who was now serving as the team's sniper. Next to her was the African-American soldier known as Brian Johnson. Section had taken a look at Johnson's record. It was clean for the most part, the man had done a tour of duty during the Skyllian Blitz, and had participated at the battle of Torfan, a member of the unit that had led the charge into the Batarian base, and had left none of the pirates alive. Prescott's account, while available to Section, had undergone some extensive censoring, which meant that she probably was or had been a Spook, an assassin, and that made Section wonder what the Alliance had used her for.

They flew down quietly until finally Harper asked, "So what's the plan, man?"

Although Harper ranked below Section, they had known each other so long that Harper no longer called Section sir, and Section preferred it that way. Section replied, "OC Prescott wil take a position on this bluff to cover us with her sniper rifle. We're going to move into this valley, and see what we can see."

"I like it," said Prescott.

"What's your strengths, Johnson?"

Johnson shifted a little bit in his seat and said, "Getting the job done."

"No I mean , combat strengths."

"That's what I meant to, sir."

"Mysterious shit," said Harper, "We'll just have you take point," he said with a laugh.

"Fine by me," was Johnson's reply. He seemed bored.

Finally the shuttle pilot alerted them that they had reached the LZ. The doors swung wide open and they dropped into the sand. It was nearing nightfall, and so they had a grandstand view of the sun setting behind the horizon, turning the sky pink and gold.

"Gorgeous," said Precott softly.

"Alright," said Section, "I want radio silence from here on out. We'll take Prescott up to the Bluff then head back down and head towards the valley."

The troops nodded. They ran towards the bluff, and Prescott went prone, setting up her Widow sniper rifle on a bipod to overlook the valley and plains. She gave the all clear hand gesture, a raised palm, and they left her there. From on the bluff, they could see the ruin of a great ship in the distance, a large hulk of scrap metal.

They ran down the side of the bluff towards the ship. Once they got close, Section ordered them to take cover behind a wall of rock. The three men did so, clutching their rifles close to their chest. After leaning sharply to take a peek around the corner, Section ordered them to move out once more, traversing over the open area and towards the ship.

Section noted that the ship was a wreck, and whatever had flown in it, was unlikely going to be able to get off world anytime soon. The team slowly walked into a clearing and Section halted them. He clicked his communicator and whispered, "Prescott, can you get a visual?"

"Negative, Commander."

The search was far from over though, they had a whole radius of places to check out. He decided they would go by foot to the west, towards another series of rock formations. "Precott, we're moving out, regroup up with us at 0-7 due northwest."

"Copy that."

They regrouped at the exit of the valley and moved west toward the rock formations. It took about half an hour, but they reached the location and Section ordered Prescott up to the top. She was able to mantle over and set up her sniper rifle.

"See anything?" whispered Section.

"Affirmative. I got heat sigs over behind that ridge. Big ones."

"Think that's our target?"

"Most likely."

"Move out," Section and the team ran into the northern direction, running over the sand. It was starting to get cold. Desert planets tended to have high extremes in temperature, with no wind and no moisture. Section's armor started to heat up to keep him comfortable.

They got to the top of the ridge and took cover.

Section peeked over the top of the ridge. He didn't believe his eyes at first, but he saw four huge creatures, synthetics, that sort of resembled defense mechs, standing around. One of them was tinkering with some kind of object, another was just sitting around, and one was pacing around another one that seemed to be detained, arms shackled together by some kind of cuff, and forced to kneel on the ground.

"This is it," Section said, "Jackpot."

"Man," commented Harper, "Those are some big sons of bitches, that's all I can say."

"Yeah, lets play this diplomatically, follow my lead."

The three of them moved down the ridge slowly then put their guns down, pointed at the sand. The creatures didn't see them at first, but then they noticed and went on high alert, standing up and appearing to raise weapons. A glow emitted from a tube that seemed to serve for one of their hands on a large silver one that seemed not very friendly looking at all. Johnson and Harper reflexively put up their rifles but Section patted them down. "Lets not create unnecessary tension."

Section made them stay behind. One of them, a red and blue one, with a box-chest standing about fifteen feet high, walked to meet up with Section halfway.

Section decided to ask the obvious question first, "Can you understand me?"

"Yes."

The creature's voice was gravelly, like an Admiral's.

"My name is Commander David Mason. I am sent on behalf of the Human Systems Alliance."

"My name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots."

Section decided to do the cordial thing and put out his hand. The creature looked confused for a second and then Section said, smiling, "In my species' culture, a shake of the hands is a sign of peace and friendship."

Optimus gave out his hand, which was huge and Section merely shook the tip of Optimus' finger the best he could. Section tried to remain as serious as possible, for it seemed quite ludicrous the situation he was in.

"Why have you come here, Commander Mason?" asked Optimus after their pleasantries were over.

"We were relayed information that you were here from the...other human you encountered...that you were here."

"Shepard? The ship commander?"

Mason winced inside himself, t_he cat's out of the bag now, my men weren't supposed to know that_, but he responded coolly, "Yes, him. We have come to offer you a deal."

"A deal?" said Optimus. The other synthetics were approaching, backing their leader.

"Yes, we have recognized that you are unable to get off world. You will not be able to either. Travel in this galaxy is regulated by Mass Relays, and you do not have a ship that can interact with them. We offer you political asylum and transportation off this world in the name of the Alliance, on the condition that you attend a formal hearing with our leadership to discuss your...entry into our Galactic community."

One of the other synthetics, a shorter, red one, with a more rounded gait, said, "That seems like a fair deal, Optimus. Its not like we are going anywhere anyway."

"We still have to deal with Soundwave, and the other one though."

"Well, we can always come back, once we can find a way to get shuffled around this galaxy."

"This is true as well," Prime was thinking things over. "I know what you want though," said Prime, kneeling down to speak to Section directly, "Shepard wouldn't have contacted you if he didn't think we would be willing to part with some of our technology."

Section saw no point in lying, "Yes, that is one of our motives. Do you accept to our terms?"

Harper and Johnson tightened their grips, a little fear entering them, if the creatures had the nerve to say "no."

After a minute that seemed like an hour, Optimus said, "We accept. There is no other alternative, and we wish to prove we are peaceful and cooperative."

Section was thinking to himself, _Promotion city, I just successfully negotiated a treaty with a Synthetic race_. "Excellent, we'll have our ship come down and pick us all up. It should be big enough for everybody, seeing as intel suggests that you can become more compact."

"That sounds agreeable."

"But I must inform you that your prisoner, is also allowed the same chance to speak to our leadership. We were told there were two factions, and as of now we do not have the intelligence to make a formal decision on such matters. Simply put, as long as he doesn't do anything harmful to us, we'll allow him a voice."

An uneasy silence settled and then the silver autobot grumbled bluntly for all to hear, "So you think that you can tell us what to do with our prisoners."

Section kept his facade of control on, but he knew he had no way to enforce their cooperation in this regard. "What is the prisoner's name? Does it have one?"

"He," said Prime, "Is Shockwave."

"Shockwave, can you recognize that there is no motive for fighting against us? Can you be trusted to stay peaceful when we bring you before the leadership? Will you give us cause to not trust you?"

The purple Synthetic appeared to be thinking, but it said, "I never meant any harm to your species. I am willing to speak with your leaders, which is what I said to the other human, Shepard."

"And that," said Section, "Is the intelligence that was given to us, and the intelligence we must use to make our decisions. Shockwave is only a prisoner by your laws. We will not interfere but we wish to speak with him just the same."

Optimus said nothing, eyeing over Shockwave suspiciously, until he finally said, not looking at Section, "Fine, we will abide by this. But you will regret your decision someday."

"I doubt it," said Shockwave, no longer scared of speaking.

"So its settled then," said Harper.

"Guys!" yelled Prescott, "I got contacts, unknowns circling your AO. Could be hostile..."

All of them, human and Cybertronian brought out their weapons at the ready. Section saw a bunch of red blips appear on his HUD and he ran behind cover.

They stood still for a moment, so quiet that a pin could be heard drop. Then a flash of light erupted in front of them, dulling Section's senses, and the chaos began, rounds coming towards the defenders from all sides.


	14. Chapter 14

_Author's note: Not my Best Chapter, but there's not much left to write in Part I. Kind of hard to think straight really._

* * *

The Humbling River

XIV

Blue-white shots rained down from all directions, as Section, Harper and Johnson pulled back to a ring of corroded metal for cover. Harper put his assault rifle over his head, shooting stray shots at the enemy, whoever they were. That thought was running through his mind as well; who was attacking them, how did they know the Synthetics were, or did they not even have that as a goal? Were they just opportunistic scavengers, only interested in killing a bunch of Alliance for some quick Batarian creds? Whatever the reason was, it didn't matter in the here and now, and Section yelled over the comm for Prescott to provide some covering fire with her sniper rifle.

Locking her rifle in place, Prescott looked around for a target, and saw several armed forces, of humanoid size, firing down at her comrades. They seemed for the most part clad in white and yellow armor with advanced helmets covering them, except for a black suited man with a long flowing mane of hair. That was weird, but Prescott didn't have much time to choose targets. She assumed that this man was the leader and pulled the trigger.

In a split second she missed though, only hitting the thigh of the man, and he scrambled for cover. She put in a new round, and took a shot at one of the other foot soldiers. His head ruptured in a huge messy explosion that was both gory and satisfying. She continued to rain support, and thin down the troops firing.

For the Autobots, the weapons of the enemy troops weren't doing much damage to them, but a strange grenade was lobbed over the top of the enemy's position.

It landed on the ground, beeped for a second near Ironhide's foot, and then exploded with a cloud of icy gas. The gas spread around, enveloping Ironhide in it. His vision blurred as sheets of ice covered his optical receptors, and his body began to stiffen. "Optimus," he croaked, "I can't see. They've frozen me!"

Optimus fired a shot at the combatants, and yelled, "Perceptor, Marines, stay back from the freeze grenades."

"Cryo grenades," grunted Section while reloading, "They'll affect you since you don't have shields. Stand back and give support fire, we'll take care of them."

"They're falling back!" yelled Prescott over the comm, taking down yet another troop through the chest. "You got them on the run."

"Let's charge!" yelled Harper.

The Autobots minus Ironhide, and the Marines ran up the battlefield, scrambling over an embankment of rocks. The black suited , long-haired man was being held up by a fellow trooper, as they limped to some shuttles parked on the plain nearby.

"Don't let em escape!" yelled Section, "Shoot for the legs!"

Their rounds flew down range, but did little good, as the enemy troops had already gotten into their shuttles, the doors closing as rounds _plinked_ against the heavy armor of the shuttle.

The shuttles flew off in retreat, leaving Section's team and the autobots standing somewhat defeated behind.

"Any idea who those bastards were?" asked Harper.

"No idea," replied Section, "But whoever they are, they have intelligence. I'll let the Admiral know about them when we get back. But let's get back to the task at hand."

They walked back to the camp, Ironhide was still immobile, laying on the ground, head and palms facing skyward. Optimus said, "He's frozen badly."

"It will take time to melt," explained Section, "Cryo burns shouldn't affect him, being Synthetic. Should be good in a couple hours."

Ironhide groaned. Optimus turned away from his soldier and addressed the marines. "You humans fought well against the enemy. You seem to be honorable, at least reliable."

"I take that as a compliment then," said Section.

"Good, I was hoping that would translate."

"Let's call the ship in," said Section, "Its time to get out of here. You have some important people to meet."

* * *

Kai Leng sat in the passenger bay of the Shuttle, clutching at the wound in his leg. Blood was streaming down his thigh and onto the floor. Another soldier ran to him with an application of omni-gel, and Leng winced in pain for a second, but then the numbness appeared and the pain started to subside. He took some deep breaths then called out to the pilot, "Get us out of the system, now!"

The shuttle pilot did as he was told, and the shuttle jerked upwards.

Kai Leng stabilized himself, his face covered in sweat. He looked around and saw four other men besides himself left alive in the shuttle. "That was close," he grimaced. "Get me something to goddamn drink," he commanded.

A soldier in full armor handed him a canteen, and he sloshed cold water down into his throat. A female voice sounded out on the shuttle's comm, "Operative Leng, this is _Valiant,_ have mission directives been met?"

"No, _Valiant_, survivors returning to ship, get ready to fly back to Oberon for Sit-Rep. You are dismissed."

"Affirmative, standing by to receive," was the neutral reply. Leng could sense judgement veiled behind it though. He would judge himself too. He had failed. And the Illusive Man did not look kindly on failure.

* * *

Oberon was a small gas planet that had some weather monitoring stations on it, most of them run by Cerberus, a few run by the official Turian delegation that the planet belonged too. Cerberus was pretty much clear and discreet about their operations, so there was no knowledge on the Turians' part. Kai Leng was sitting on a waiting chair, dressed in a simple cloth vest and pants, looking out the glass window. The planet's sky was a hazy red, wind and grit whipping around violently. Finally, a lithe receptionist in skin-tight Cerberus uniform called for Leng, "The Illusive Man will speak to you now."

Leng got up and walked into the communication's room. It was dark, but that changed when the communication field absorbed his image and sent it out. The Illusive man, in full color was represented in front of him, and Leng gave the man a crisp military salute.

"The mission," the Illusive man got right to the point , a cigarette smoking in his hand, "Was not a success I was told. Why was that?"

The Illusive Man was the only being in the universe that Leng had ever met, that commanded such fear over him. Leng tried to get the words to speak, and after swallowing said, "My fault sir. Entirely. We were not prepared enough. The Alliance, a Special ops team had gotten their first, and had worked out a deal with the aliens. I decided out of fear and rash thinking to attack the Alliance. They proved too powerful."

The Illusive Man just stared down Leng for a couple seconds then said, "That...is interesting."

Leng said nothing, and the Illusive Man continued, "It was inevitable that the Alliance would get out there eventually. But they are slow, it takes a couple days for the realization to kick in. So that only means that somebody tipped them off early. And its obvious who that was."

"Shepard?" asked Leng.

"Correct."

"Shepard had always been loyal to the Alliance first," said Leng, "It makes sense that he would tell them."

"Yes, but he also lied about there being anything of interet there, and according to this report, you found something there. Synthetic life forms. Big ones, am I correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then, we know now how little we can trust Shepard," said the Illusive Man finally, stamping out his cigarette with finality.

"It would appear so," was all Leng said.

"You are dismissed," said the Illusive Man, "Due to unforeseen circumstances, I have decided not to reprimand you for your failure to bring forth mission directives. You will put on RTB for tasking, soon. You may go now."

Leng bowed and walked off.

The Illusive Man lit another cigarette and began to puff away. Things were getting interesting, but Cerberus had suffered a major defeat. The ability to make first contact and control new aliens, synthetics at that, would have been a sufficient boon to the war effort against the Reapers, the Illusive Man thought. But Shepard had removed that chance, and ensured the Alliance had the monopoly on that. It angered the Illusive Man, but he knew what he had to do. Press on, and try to make up for the loss somehow.

Shepard will get his payback, thought the Illusive Man, when the Collectors are finally dealt with, he will have nowhere to go.

And with that, the Illusive Man went back to work.


	15. Chapter 15

_Author's Note: For those of you wanting to know what happened to Cliffjumper and the Quarians, I am planning a separate fic about that, since Cliffjumper will be in Book 2, and I don't want to half-ass it._

* * *

The Humbling River

XV

One of the unique abilities of the Cybertronian race was the ability to absorb information. Information that could take months to absorb and comprehend could be downloaded and understood in seconds, and this applied to most normal sized Transformers. Larger Transformers had smaller brain capacity, and couldn't make sense of some information, but thankfully for Megatron, he was not so restrained. Megatron had once been a learner himself, and was not nearly as callous and simple minded as he knew Shockwave and others believed him to be. Information was power as Soundwave said, and he had gotten hold of the encrypted files of a galaxy waiting to be conquered.

It didn't take much effort to break through the codes, and once he got through one, he could get through them all. He merely took his time, standing over the many servers of the military base that he had just plundered, midst flaming rubble and black smog. The world he had landed on was called Fehl prime he learned. It was a colony created by beings named humans, and they happened to have one of the most powerful militaries in the land.

Megatron looked through more, putting together the pieces, looking for more information on how he might begin a new wave of conquest; he learned of the Citadel, a titanic space station that was the seat of government, but more importantly Megatron learned about technology, as that was how his species would adapt. They would take the technology of their enemies and use it against them, disguise themselves and then strike when they least expected it.

The use of the Mass Relays was inefficient, not exactly primitive but lazy, as the races were simply taking what had been given them and had not innovated for themselves. A coordinate map of the galaxy would be needed once Megatron could get a hold of his ship, but until then he would need a way for him to move freely among the Mass Relay lanes. That would be his first goal.

He tried to narrow his search to find vehicles capable of transporting him, of tapping into these Mass Relays, until he could find his underlings and enlist them to build or repair what had been lost. There was little available, but the humans, they were on to something. On their homeworld, there was a prototype, a starfighter capable of tapping into the Mass Relays but had not yet been put out into development on a wide scale. That would be his first target.

Everything was coming together.

Megatron would refuse his fate. If he would have to slink away and pretend he was merely a tool of humans in the guise of a gunship he would do so. With Cybertron gone, he would have to do whatever it took to regain power. Some if not all of the Decepticons would have survived the trip from Cybertron, and he would find them and assert his dominance once more. Patience was the key, and it might not have been his strong suit, but adaptation was preferable to submission.

Megatron smiled to himself, strange since he was a Synthetic, but the Transformers were made of more emotion than most. However, at that moment Megatron heard a strange noise, a grunt from underneath some rubble.

Megatron looked around to see a wounded insect, (human), with tanned skin and short black hair. Blood had stained the thing's armor, and its helmet had been cracked. It was stumbling, and that was when it noticed Megatron and said to itself, "Oh shit. You're still here."

Megatron stepped over above the human who fell to the ground again, clearly weak from his injuries. "So insect," said Megatron, "Does my being here not surprise you?"

"It does," said the creature between deep breaths, "But you'll have to do better than that if you want to scare me ugly."

Megatron chuckled, "Such arrogance, from a small creature."

"We small creatures are very arrogant, because we can kill big creatures like you," retorted the human.

"Indeed, you survived my first attempt on your life, insect. So tell me, do you have the arrogance to name yourself as well?"

"Now why would you be interested in something like that?"

"Call it," said Megatron slyly, "Sentimentality. I want to make it more personal before I end your life."

"My name," said the creature, "Is Lieutenant James Vega. And if you are going to kill me, just do it now. I haven't got all day."

"Alright, Lieutenant," Megatron spat out the words, "James Vega, let it be known before you die, that it was Lord Megatron, ruler of the Decepticons, that brought the first fires of conquest to your galaxy. And that you were the first to be honored by your defeat."

James merely smiled and said, "Cocky bastard."

And with that, Megatron stomped his foot into the insect, feeling a wet crunch underneath his foot. Megatron slid his foot around and spread the remains around.

And so it had begun. The galaxy would be his to rule, one way or another.

END OF BOOK 1


End file.
